Author
Topic: Outa Track MkI - Nefarious Pumpkin (Read 5379 times)

OMG*. I just sent 26 friendly Neinzul enclaves on cleanup duty. And I'm following them with a bunch of MkI starships and some launchers (tackle drones and blade spawners). Hot-notes are coming soon, but I wanted to let you know (and I won't write it in the hot-notes nor in the final rapport because it's too out-of-lore for that, but): following an armada of Neinzul enclave is like doing shopping with an overexcited girl. She's faster than you, unpredictable, and she spreads chaos around her while you run behind her and try to keep up, and sometime have to handle her mess and pay for havoc. And following roaming enclaves in 10/10 dark Spire territory is the same but with mafia killers lurking around trying to kill both you and her.

(There is a scene like that in the film Wasabi, but as it's a French film, I doubt any of you know; good fun film, however. [Wikipedia.en checking...] Oh maybe it's known in the states... "action-comedy", indeed. Overall bad reviews, apparently... Maybe fun if you don't expect too much from it.)

Now I feel like I am the nefarious minor faction. Thank you so much, Mal

03:45:23One Core Tackle Drone Launcher cost more than one MkII starship. This AI model is truly a high end one! The beam frigates shall wait I have more metal.So, my next target is a A-prime CSG deep in a dark spire territory. Oddly enough, there is an ARS with the Spire Corvette as first available model and a design backup with this same model. The AI has been busy on Spire engineering at this planet.

03:51:01A threat cleaning mission turned bad: a MkIV ion canon forced me to use only starships and big ships (zenith siege engine, bladespawner, tackle drone launchers); the threat was essentially some high mark starships and casualties were heavy on both sides (fortunately not that heavy on my side). However, while the vengeance generator here wokeup and was easily handled, other VG in the galaxy spawned some wraiths that back-stabbed one of my frontier world. I had to go stop dark Spire invasion then run for the reprisal wave triggered because of my threat cleaning. Running back and forth won't help capture the CSG! Well, at least it will give me some salvage opportunities.

04:06:10Remote planet captured. CSG A-prime down. Spire Frigate blueprint stolen. Core medic frigate rewired; I don't know how long I will hold it, however, but I didn't bothered hanking it.On the Frigate side, while I didn't researched advanced turrets and shields, only basic weaponry is compatible. However, if I would improve it, I would prefer tweak the hull rather than researching better turrets.Ok, now I'm left with only two A-prime CSG, both deep in dark Spire territory. I need to carve a path through tachyon sentinels to send a science scout to see where are the best ARS. Maybe I should wakeup the Vengeance Generators. Let's see what can be done with some raider starships.Oh, I've got a better idea! Let's see if my registered Neinzul songs can be useful. I'm not sure if I would be able to send the 26 friendly enclaves into a specific territory, but I hope I would be able to make them clean some worlds. I need to send a fleet following them in case the dark Spire attack them. Let say medic frigates, tackle drones launchers, blade spawners, and all the starships: no ion canon would frighten this fleet and the long range launcher/spawners would help younglings fleet from afar. The rest of my fleetships would stay in my territory and defend against roaming neinzul, AI waves and occasional dark Spire incursions.

04:40:07The Neinzul enclaves are out of control. They wreak havoc in the whole galaxy and continuously wakeup dark Spire ships. They're too fast and my starship fleet can't keep up, so I re-affected them to territorial defense and send only raider starships after the enclaves. I feared their number would diminish, but as cleanup go, more enclaves join the armada. New worlds were cleaned from tachyon coverage and I sent scouts on each new one. Now more than the half of the wormhole network is in my sight.Frontier defenses are stressed a lot but nothing that my mobile fleet can't handle. The AI is still denied from heavy reinforcement thanks to my earlier raids. One A-prime world is cleared; I sent a stealth science lab to see what is available in, but I still wait for the second A-prime to be cleared. Enclaves are totally uncontrollable, but they're so powerful. I must keep up.

04:51:32The two last ARS are in sensor ranges. One holds a youngling shrike genome and can be hacked for uninteresting blueprints. The other, however, holds the blade spawner that I already know but can be hacked for the Zenith viral shredder! I plan on hacking for the viral shredder; I have enough exploits left for that, but the AI's response will stir up the dark Spire.I'll first send some raiders on blackops to activate the two vengeance generators that are still asleep on planets where Neinzul refuse to go. Then I'll send all my long range ships on the targeted A-prime world, hack for the viral shredders, then go back home and plan the two final assaults.Oh, the target planet is adjacent to a raid engine. I shall sabotage it if I don't want the AI to be aware of my plans.

04:54:25Blackops completed. Dire guardian detected on frontier planet. 10 minutes before fully functional. Problem would be that the planet it would attack is one with a VG. I fear to imagine what dark Spire would spawn with the vengeance generated by the death of a dire guardian, even if my fleet one-shot it.

04:57:10Blackops went bad for the "back home" part: AI reprisal is high but no wave is yet announced. However, the dark Spire was more reactive, and a powerful Hatred was soon wreaking the turrets of my remote planet. Thanks to my powerful economy, the raid starships were quickly rebuilt, packed with the reserved ones, rushed through AI territory and took down the unpunished ghost.By the time, the hacker reached its destination and the cheap sabotage is proceeding.

04:57:52Sabotage done. Hacker on its way to the target planet, waiting for supporting fleet. Dire guardian in 6:30 and reprisal waves detected. Oops.The main reprisal wave will hit my remote planet. The least wave will line up (5 seconds interval) with a regular wave on my frontier, but it's still insignificant enough to hope the turrets would handle this. I need to go for the big wave on my remote world and hope I'll be back in time and in sufficient health for the dire guardian.Oh, ghost! Ion canons on the way. My raiders need to go ahead and clear the path now!

04:59:25Raid done: path cleaned from ion canons. Fleet on its way; dark Spire spawning everywhere. 5:00 before dire guardian, 1:00 before 500 ships hit my remote world. Hold!04:59:52Fleet in position. Stray enclave took for AI invasion and instantly imploded. Stress is palpable.05:00:54Invasion hammered flat, dark Spire vengeance alike. Secondary reprisal bigger than expected, but handled by stationary defenses. Dire guardian in 3:30, fleet on its way back.05:01:4534 friendly enclaves came and put an end to the secondary invasion. Main fleet passing by the planet with the dire guardian lair on tip-toe. Spawning in 2:30.05:01:57Reprisal wave detected on dire guardian's target, 30 seconds after its spawning. If it take 30 seconds to reach the wormhole, the guardian would be surrounded by a 200 ships escort.I can't believe humans are unaware of this. The galaxy is burning and peoples are chatting and working and eating and sleeping in their little bubbles...05:03:26Friendly Neinzul are attacking a distant world, awaking dark Spire; one of the spawned ghosts lurked into one of my world and destroyed my relay. Good thing the AI can't smell blood in the water. Oh, and a Hatred is wreaking my remote planet. I feel like the raiders won't see the big battle.Dire guardian in 1:00 and escort in 1:30.05:04:22Dire Widow incoming.05:04:53Dire escort spawning on the other side of the targeted planet. Hatred took down, raiders on their way back.05:05:08Escort vaporized. Raiders intercepted the dire Widow which decided to stop and riposte.05:05:12All MkI raiders down by the first Widow's salvo. Raiders sent on retreat, main fleet standing ready for impact and AI already salvaging the busted hulls.05:05:26Oh! The Widow is turning around the wormhole without crossing it! Damn it! My only choice is to attack on its territory (waiting for it to backstab me is not an option), which would give a lot of salvage to the AI. My economy is holding high despite the raider's regular reconstructions, and I hope I would be able to refleet before the reprisal hit. Let's hunt the widow on its world!05:06:07Widow down! Reprisal warning increasing from 2 to 3. Horde of dark Spire immediately spawning.05:07:47Two Hatreds slipped under the forcefield of one of my frontier worlds and rushed to my home command station. Energy bombs are hitting the forcefield and shaking near everything inside. Luckily the cryogenic pods and the bubble cities are on the other side of the force field, but my station is taking damage.Is this... pain? Am I feeling pain? My "body" is being attacked and my... meat... is awaking? Make them stop! MAKE THEM STOP!!!

05:08:04The force field is down. My body is uncovered and my fleet is furiously hammering the Hatreds. Pain is rushing through my whole body, both metal and meat. My brain is blazing and the whole galaxy under my sight is instantly reduced to the nano-point of pain which my world became. I gather all my will power and try to "look" at the battle field. One Hatred left, half destroyed under the doomsday firepower of my whole fleet. I see the energy bombs slowly flying toward my naked metal body.In my ocean of pain, in my mind burnt to ashes by that elder forgotten feeling, one way out appear. One trigger that I long time ago refused to ever pull remind me. The Zenith Time Bender. Only one neural impulse and I can trigger it. Only one neural trigger and I escape... or rip the fabric of reality.Pain reach yet another level in the unbearable and the fatal energy bomb rush through the void. Reality is nothing. Only pain exists.

05:00:37Dire guardian spawning in 03:43, low reprisal warning, insignificant wave warping within 1:07. Whole fleet hunting remaining AI ships on the remote world.I did it! The Zenith Time Bender worked! Reality is still intact! No more pain... such a peace. Oh, the widow hasn't spawned yet. But soon. I know there is a way to configure the Zenith Time Bender with a sort of time beacon. I think it has one beacon and automatically increases it from time to time.I promised myself to never use it in fear of a time paradox tearing reality apart. Now I promise to never use it again.Well, let's kill this dire guardian again... but this time, beware the dark Spire's vengeance.

The true pain of the darkspire is upon you! Pretty awesome AAR...its cool that it has kinda turned out how we were thinking it would be - A Clash Between Monumental forces, with you swaying each side as best as you can.

05:06:29The dire guardian is now a Sniper. It stood near its lair for a while, my fleet handled some backwater duties, and then it teamed up with a Hatred and destroyed my remote world. I lost the medic frigate, but it doesn't matter.I'm tired of this petty game. I'll abandon this distant world.

05:18:06I was hacking an Advanced Research Station away, and the dire sniper sneaked to a frontier world and took down the command station. However, it lingered in the range of my missile turrets and was destroyed away from any Vengeance Generator. Problem solved.

05:29:39One the second remote world, I hacked the ARS and obtained the Zenith Viral Shredder blueprint. The dark Spire was handled with my raiders fleet. A massive fortress was developed with older human data stolen back from AI, in an attempt to deal with the dark Spire. As only few can be supplied by my limited power grid, they were dedicated to the protection of worlds with Vengeance Generators, especially remote ones. I lost the advanced starship constructor and I'm now unable to reproduce the MkIV raider starship. It doesn't matter, my strategy don't rely on high-end starships.Now I need to take and advanced factory. There is also one last CSG network, I'll see where I'll take it down. I'm also planning on some bruteforce downloads on worlds with no dark Spire VG. My fleet should be powerful enough to handle the AI; it's not as scary as the dark Spire. But first I need to spend all my exploits on sabotage: a bunkerer subcommander on a core world is holding the shortest path to a home world with sniper and orbital mass drivers. Let's do this now.

05:32:38The new fortresses were fire-tested against Hatreds and proved efficient.The last Neinzul census counted 37 enclaves; one more world just got neutered.Pirate fleet is reduced to a pair of patrolling frigates. Why did I trade with them?My Spire fleet count Blade Spawners and Gravity Drains.My Zenith fleet count Bombardment Ships, Siege Engines, Beam Frigates and Viral Shredder.I also have core Snipers, core Tackle Drone Launchers and regular Infiltrators stolen from AI.I'm planning of increasing my Spire fleet with Maws, Teleporting Leeches and Railclusters.Let's see how far I can get with this.

05:39:47Threatfleet pushed into one of my remote world by Neinzul patrol. Enclaves, AI and dark Spire fought each other around my fortress. Neinzul won, obviously, but now wraiths are roaming the galaxy. Nothing serious, however: my defenses are geared enough.

05:41:55Spoke too fast. Two Hatred nearly took down a fortress. Luckily, they focused their fire on turrets and the fortress finally destroyed them.

05:45:01A big reprisal hit on my frontier. Neinzul and half of my fleet were on their way but didn't manage to get there in time. 72 pirates came to help.

06:02:57Advanced factory bruteforced. I used all my remaining exploits at the AI and then went to brutal DDoS and aggressive key decoding. Half of my fleet held the reprisal and the final vengeance was the strength of my dedicated fleet. I would almost feel disappointed if my life wasn't at stake. Anyway, I feel confident for more brutal design download. I even fell like I would download all the designs that are not in dark Spire territory.Let see what I can steal next...Oh! It seems like my power grid won't be able to supply such an increased fleet. Well, maybe I will capture some planets too when their backup would be drained. But for now, I hope some metal converters would be enough.

06:08:44After 20 seconds of bruteforce download, the AI sent 200 MkIII raider starships. I fell like I'll need to change my plans.And reuse the Zenith Time Bender before not being able anymore...

06:06:44Space-time fabric still intact? Good. This old artifact isn't that rusty, after all.Well... So, no more bruteforce download, no more hacking. Then I'll take the planets I refrained to capture to avoid destroying the design backups. I'll get some energy and knowledge, and then I'll plan my final assault.Oh, and there is one Core Shield Generator network left. One of the generators is on e planet with a Zenith power generator (probably an old golem's core) with a dark Spire vengeance generator. Why not? There is a superterminal on the way to it; I'll blow it up because the AI doesn't put me under pressure (aside from hacking) and it would connect the golem's core to my little empire. Let's do this.

06:34:43Core world attacked and neutered. Reprisal wave hit the exact opposite of my empire, on top of a VG. AI handled, dark Spire mostly handled.Dire spider guardian spawned and roaming outside the frontier. Still waiting on a VG world. Plan is to wait for it to get out of dark Spire territory and take it down with all available firepower.

06:36:28Unexpected dark Spire bursts. Searched for the dire guardian: nowhere. 1,000 younglings on last known dire guardian's position, 44 enclaves returning from it. Neinzul assassination is the most probable cause.

06:55:41Fleet fully rebuilt. 48 enclaves on their way to clear a CPA carrier (300). Ready for first home assault.

06:58:43CPA fleet flew from enclaves and hit a remote world. Dark Spire woke up and are now fighting AI while my turrets do their best to stop both.

07:11:11Exo wave on its way. One remote, two frontier and two backwater worlds lost so far. 4,700 threat in the galaxy. Dark Spire fighting reprisal carriers but not that much efficient.

07:18:39Nine worlds lost. 2,700 threat.

07:20:5156 Neinzul enclaves went to neutered core world and took down all remaining force field and the fortress. I need to send all I can against it now!

07:24:11Home command station down. 660 vorticural cutlass MkII under the slowing field of my home force field. 55 enclaves arriving full speed.07:24:20100 younglings unloaded on top of the flying shurikens. Short range enclave's weapon starting to fire.07:24:32400 cutlas left. They change their course and hope to run toward a wormhole. Home FF gravity effect still affecting them.07:24:54No more cutlas on home planet. Threat indicator below red-threshold. 200 younglings singing victory song all together.

08:27:14Core world neutered; path to last homeworld is clear.Capturing the old homeorld awoken a dire factory. A dire sniper is now roaming the frontier. There would be no problem for Neinzul to hunt it down as there is no dark Spire in this sector.

I packed some older hot-notes with the last ones. I'll be back soon to discuss more this interesting setup and my (improvable) play. And of course I'll edit my first post with a more loreful narration of the game. I'll also seek for a new challenge, though I have a thematic Zenith game already running (first attempt at 8/8), but not worth a full bells-and-whistles AAR.

But as a rapid thoughts:- dark spire at 10 is not that fun and sometimes quite frustrating.- I was familiar with the roaming enclaves and I loved their impact in this game, though I feel intensity doesn't change much. Same for preservation wardens.- Pirates... I mean "Human Resistance Fighters" sent only two waves of near 80 ships in the whole game, and their long-term impact was really... disappointing: they patrolled and slowly faded away against harmless Neinzul.- Oh! Grid/40! Great! I love it! Totally different galaxy navigation and expansion. However, I prefer the more chaotic or shaped styles like realistic or concentric, but I never played on grid and it was fun. Thank you, Mal! And the 40 planets size is... well, I feel it too easy: everything is in reach, and only the diagonal homeworld was a bit away... I hope you, Mal, enjoy a true 80-sized map.

Space-time fabric still intact? Good. This old artifact isn't that rusty, after all.

Zenith Customer Service: "Dear Valued Customer, be advised that the TimeBender 2000 is 3728 years out of its warranty/Being out of its warranty, we cannot guarantee universe integrity/Not being able to guarantee, our lawyers remind you that for the destruction of all that is we have no liability!" I managed to make that rhyme all the way through!

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Searched for the dire guardian: nowhere. 1,000 younglings on last known dire guardian's position, 44 enclaves returning from it. Neinzul assassination is the most probable cause.

Cause of death: Neinzul Piranha Attack

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All core guard posts down. Fortress and command station not even scratched. Complete fleet whipe. 2,000 reprisal on remote world within 32 seconds. Reprisal warning level 4 remaining. 6:55 before vengeful exo. Metal production incredibly far from handling total rebuilt.

<pops more popcorn>

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Dark Spire fighting reprisal carriers but not that much efficient.

You finally found something that was at least a speedbump for the Dark Spire!

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Nine worlds lost. 2,700 threat.

Ouch!

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Capturing the old homeorld awoken a dire factory. A dire sniper is now roaming the frontier.

This galaxy is just loaded with snipers. Would have been hilariously appropriate if one of the AI types was Assassin.

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VICTORY

Congrats on surviving that madness!

Look forward to reading your post-game notes.

Logged

Infiltrating hostile AI networks to rewrite reality.

[[Hacks available from this unit found on the AI War Modding subforum.]]